A Very Long Time Ago
by TheBlackParade
Summary: On the night before they travel to their doom Tobias and Jake sit staring at the sky. Together they contemplate the past, present, and future.


Author's Note: This does not necessarily contain homosexual themes. Love comes in innumerable forms and many are beyond description. So, you may either decide that they love one another as friends or in a romantic sense. Your call. Either way, enjoy.

**A Very Long Time Ago**

Let's play pretend, my Prince. Let's imagine that we have arrived at the end as just another fatality of the immature game. That game which the two supreme beings dabble in, rolling dice and drawing cards to see which doom lies next on the itinerary. You and I are two cards in the stacked deck still set in close proximity. Why did that happen? Because I love my _shorm_ and you love your duty. And really, what else do we have to do but go down fighting?

You tell me they are in the past; phantoms we can never reclaim nor own in death. It wasn't that I owned her. Who could illusion himself to the point of believing he owned the Warrior Princess? She owned me, just as you did before her. I was brought up to be a slave and you, like your cousin after you, held my strings. How could I be anything but subservient when for the first time in my entire pathetic existence I was being given worth? You showed me that foreign fantasy called 'kindness'. And she, lonely herself in some manner, continued your legacy by introducing me to love. You might shake your head and say 'Let her rest in peace, Tobias.', but I say you're a deceitful piece of scar tissue. I won't follow your instructions any longer. The more your weary eyes beg me to pardon your mistakes the harder the trigger for hatred is cocked to expel into my bloodstream. But then it ebbs and I sink, uncurl, allow the tenor of your voice that has always made my knees weak to deliver calm. I could never hate you, you bastard.

It feels so cold to my human skin like the tongues of the arctic wind. Do you remember the arctic, my Prince? Polar bears and airplane hangers, fleas and Visser Three? I remember. I never forget _anything_. Yes, I have a great memory capacity. I've had to; how else does one keep stock of every little kindness in an abused childhood? Of the intricate differences between a hawk and a boy? Oh, I'm an expert. We're sitting on this log and freezing our asses off. Why, my Prince? Why are we wasting time just brooding beside one another? What do you mean, this is the beginning of the end? My life ended so long ago. As did yours. Sometimes I think our lives ended when we were thirteen years old and too curious about falling stars. I told you I was _cold_, Jake, why do you eye me so… compassionately? It's been so long since I dared to morph my human self and I'm unaccustomed to being a mammal. Jake… please don't put your arm around me. We aren't permitted to touch. So go on, let me go.

Your skin is so warm… on second thought, don't move. Stay with me, hold me against your side just like that. We aren't little boys anymore and when did you get so strong? I'm still a skinny, frail person with eyes too big for my face but you have filled out to become the man I fought under for so many years. The man that dwelt and hardened inside the solemn child before you ever saw high school. It wasn't fair, was it? It's almost a war crime in itself that five children we given the duty of saving the human race. We never knew what it was to be teenagers, my Prince. I never even knew what it was to be treated as a human.

I used to look into the stars and dream, my Prince. As a boy I had only what was inside me and the great unknown to give me life. Beatings, neglect, hatred, indifference, servitude…my heart held no one but my cat inside it and for the lack of humankind I was swathed in art and stories and images of an existence I could not extend myself into. And the bullies, oh they were almost as horrible as my drunkard Uncle with the hard fists. But you saved me, didn't you? You rescued me from the toilet and the bullies with your presence and command. I thought I was in love with you as you towel-dried my wet hair and growled your thoughts on my antagonists. I know that I was a weight on you; I was the charity case that you allowed to trail after. Pathetic. But not so pathetic six months later, hm? No way in hell.

Don't look at me like that, my Prince. Don't let the Berlin Wall lie down for even a moment. I can't bear it. You can't be Jake, my Prince. I love Jake. I still do. But I don't love you for taking the only person that ever truly cared for me. No, I refuse to believe what you say in that soft, steady tone. You don't love me. You can never love me because then I will love you in return and oh… well, what will I do then? We'll be dead in a few hours and I could not bear the pulverization of my heart again. What was that? Do I still love you? No. I love Jake Berenson, not the War Hero and savior of Earth. I love the boy who could effortlessly understand me in ways not even Rachel could, the boy who had hope and passion and a cause. Not the broken aftermath. No one loves the remnants of carnage, so we do not love one another. Jake Berenson and Tobias Simmons, the boys who once looked to the night sky with hearts freshly wounded and said 'They will come. Everything will be alright.', love one another. They, which we no longer are, loved. A very long time ago.


End file.
